A lesson in indulging Matt and why it should be done more often

September 13th - Lucca
On Sunday we visited Palazzo PFanner.  This is one of the 19 Century mansions in Lucca that is open to the public.  The family made their fortune from beer.  An interesting formula given this total wine culture here in Italy. A lovely house with a beautiful garden.

The Garden in Palazzo PFanner

We took some pictures and found a nice shady spot in the garden and took a quick nap.

Matt sleeping at Palazzo Pfanner

When I layed down I took the camera out of the knapsack (also know as "the hump"), so that I would not put my head on it while I was napping.  After our quick nap, we resumed our tourist duties.  We had heard about an Oliotecca (a shop that sells Olive Oil)nearby so we went there to scope out and taste the oil.  Lucca is one of the most famous places in all of Italy for their olive oil, so I was determined, if I could to have some special oil shipped back to the states.  The Oliotecca was near Palazzo Pfanner we went in and spoke to the guy there who said they did ship to the US.  We tasted some of their oils and found one to be fantastic so he gave us some prices on the oils and shipping it.  It was a little more than I expected so we decided to think about it.  After we got back to our hotel later that day we noticed that our camera was missing.  Needless to say we were pretty diswroght about losing the camera.  The last place that we remembered having it was napping in the garden at Palazzo Pfanner.  We decided that we had probably left it in the grass there and determined to go by there first thing in the AM as soon as they opened.  The next day we trek off to Palazzo Pfanner with great hopes that this was were we left it and we would soon be reunited.  We arrived just as they were opening and asked if someone had turned it in.  Sorry no, was the reply.  We asked if we could look in the garden maybe no one had seen it.  We look at the spot of the past day's napping but no camera.  We ruminated some what about the lose of the camera but were determined not to let it ruin the vacation.  I still had my phone camera which was really the one that I had been using the entire trip.  So we try to put this behind us and get on with our vacation.  More touristing around lunch and we found ourselves back near the Oliotecca so I decide I wanted to go in an have one more look at this olive oil.  The shop was pretty busy then so I just took a quick look and left.  Linda didn't even come in.  She was trying not to encourage my obsessive idiosyncrasy about olive oil.  I got about 50 steps outside the door and decided that I really wanted to get some olive oil from Lucca.  I tell Linda that I'm going back to buy this oil and she sprinkles holy water on my desire.  I pop back into the store which was still quite busy and talked to the woman owner of the store.  We had originally talked to her husband yesterday but he told us that he was not working and his wife would be there.  In my best Italian I told her that we had talked to her husband yesterday and he gave us some prices on oil and shipping.  She looks at me and say's yes, my husband told me about you.  She then reaches over and hold up our camera!  I start jumping up and down saying Io sone molto felici (I am very happy).  I run outside to show Linda (she cant bear to watch me spend this kind of money for Olive oil, so she remained outside the store while I did the deal).  Now she's jumping up and down too. I'm sure they owner thought we were completely mad.   Needless to say we were both very happy to be reunited with the camera and had Linda not indulged me we would not have ever found the camera.  That's why we need to indulge Matt more often.